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Thursday, May 22, 2014

Report on teacher hiring and evaluation

So
hiring from the top 10% is WRONG?? And by having an eligibility list,
it doesn't give "flexibility" in hiring? Flexibility to WHAT?? hire your
unemployed brother-in-law??And A+ schools praising this is
disgusting! One reason I camr to the city was that in smaller
communities you WERE hired by "who you knew" Why would ANY sane person
want this? Help me understand how this flexibility is good???
"

Sam Franklin said, "We want to be a place (PPS) where great teachers want to stay." Really? Well, maybe PPS wants great teachers to stay until they move up the ladder on the pay scale. So many top notch, seasoned educators have been exited out of their teaching position over the past five years. It's so sad looking back from where the district was to where it is today.

Points are given for a number of factors-- all positive--Grades yes but attending PPS gave you points-- good for our city,student teaching in an urban environment-- also good for our city, interview, National Teachers exam, and yes, getting all the paperwork in on time- again not bad.How will A+ spin this study as being good for our schools?

Well, Pittsburgh must be a place Mr. Franklin wants to stay, so you have to believe he means what he says. He came during the Roosevelt administration and some might have predicted he would be gone by now. Say what you will about Mr. Roosevelt but you would be hard-pressed to prove that he did not have a great commitment to developing talent and leaders in the young people he brought to the district. Many of his corps have moved on and some might wonder if we were a place meant to be an incubator in some great design.

All that said, the eligibility list issue, missing out on great talent by having to hire form the top 10%? It just reeks. It is putrid. Can't anyone see there is talking out of the both sides of the mouth going on? Hypocritical.

Hold on 6:15 AM. Please don't tell us about Roosevelt's commitment. When the going got tough after years of abusive spending by his administration, he got GOING! Upon his departure he said, I planted the seed for the garden. I'm a change agent." The successful farmer doesn't just plant the seed.He/She tends to the growing of the garden. That's where the "hard work" begins. Roosevelt and those he brought up under his wing were all inexperienced educational professionals who just nodded their heads saying yes to the likes of Bill Gates.

If you want to grow Pittsburgh students, then you need to have professionals who are grounded in the Pittsburgh area who want to make an impact on student learning to grow our community.

As for "growing these so called great administrators" the fact is that there was and still is so much turmoil between those in charge at Bellefield that the house of cards has begun to crumble. Relationships between two of the so called leaders went so sour one of them had no option than to leave. Now Lippert has been given the cold shoulder by the Lane administration being uninvited to Central Office meetings so she too had to go and a welcomed departure it is. maybe someone competent who is a loyal PPS professional will be appointed to the position to head the Office of Curriculum and Development. I'm sure within a few months we'll soon be hearing about the departure of Lane.

The point about Mr. Roosevelt is that he was not born to head a school district. He is definitely where he belonged since birth. If you saw him introduce his very young team brought in from out of town as fresh faced kids, well, you could just see some kind of fatherly pride as he stepped aside to let a kid have the spotlight.